| [Dec. 31st, 2016|10:29 pm] |
Cool fingers rested on his arm, just for a moment. Genma said, "Diapers, clothes, shoes. I'll see if I can find a rucksack. You start assembling the baby stuff." He pointed at a thin cord that cut diagonally across the corner near the coal stove, strung with heavy white cloths.
Diapers. Right. Not bandages. Ryouma shook himself, and went to pull them off the line.
Diapers, monkey, a cloth for wiping soiled bottoms, a few tenderly stitched tiny outfits, swaddles— What else did babies need? There wasn't much else in the house.
Ryouma knew poverty, bone-deep: hunger that gnawed at the spine, fear that sank into the belly. The exhaustion that pulled you down, promising tomorrow would never be better than today. He'd bargained for his freedom with his blood, but Kimiko had tried and failed and sunk back down. Those maimed fingers would never hold a kunai.
He wondered where the father was. Dead already, like the Kusakabe clan in the caves? In hiding, or fled?
It didn't really matter. The kid would grow up with her mother and aunt anyway, in a better place than here.
Raidou tapped him on the shoulder. "Tie this, will you?"
He was rigging a piggyback sling out of rope, padded thickly with torn pieces of quilt. Ryouma stuffed the rest of the baby paraphernalia into Genma's rucksack and crouched down to help Raidou knot, adjust, and pad the sling. Kakashi stood guard by the door, silent, watching.
A sling for the baby went a little quicker; Kimiko had one already, a sturdy cotton wrap that Kakashi eventually stepped in to decipher. He tied it around his own torso with a memorized ease, then peeled out again. With the sling in his hand, he crouched in front of Fukuda and Kimiko.
"I'm the fastest person here. Will you let me carry her?"
Kimiko looked instinctively at her sister. Fukuda hesitated, her eyes on Kakashi's face.
Then, slowly, she nodded.
Kimiko swallowed. "Don't hurt her, shinobi-san." Her voice gained strength. "Promise you won't hurt her."
"I have a little brother," Kakashi said. His voice was low and steady. "He's three and a half." He looked at the child in Kimiko's arms and reached out carefully, signalling every move, to lay a finger across her palm. The baby snuffled; the tiny hand curled closed.
Kakashi said, "I swear she'll be safe with me."
Kimiko's eyes drank him in. Her arms tightened on her daughter, clutching her closer; then, with an effort like breaking bone, released. She flipped back the swaddling quilt.
Ryouma nearly bit through his tongue.
The kid was blue. |
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